Alfred Joyce Kilmer

(December 6, 1886 – July 30, 1918)

 

He was an American journalist, poet, literary critic, lecturer an editor and a good soldier who served in the First World War. He had been a prolific poet who tackled in his poems the beauty of nature and the goodness of faith. However, people remember him most for his poem entitled “Trees” (1913), which was published in the collection Trees and Other Poems in 1914.

Joyce Kilmer wrote "Trees" on February 2, 1913, in the Kilmer home in Mahwah, New Jersey. He dedicated the poem to Mrs. Henry Mills Alden, his wife's mother and a poet in her own right.

The text stated below is the original written by Kilmer.

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth's sweet flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.

There have been several variations on the text, including many parody texts substituted to mimic Kilmer's seemingly simple rhyme and meter, and questioning the poem's choice of metaphors. Of the often repeated parodies, one of the most known is "Song of the Open Road" by Ogden Nash (1902–1971) in which Nash wrote:

I think that I shall never see
A billboard lovely as a tree.
Indeed, unless the billboards fall,
I'll never see a tree at all.

However, several critics, both Kilmer's contemporaries and modern scholars, criticize his work as being too simple, overly sentimental, and that his style is far too traditional, even old-fashioned.

Kilmer, a sergeant in the 165th U.S. Infantry Regiment died in war during the Second Battle of Marne. Heavy fighting ensued throughout the latter days of July in 1918. On the 30^th of the same month, Kilmer volunteered to go with Major William "Wild Bill" Donovan when his First Battalion led the day's attack. Kilmer led a reconnaissance mission to find the position of a German machine gun. When his comrades found him later that day, they thought at first that he was peering over the edge of a little hill, where he had crawled for a better view. When he did not answer their call, they ran to him and found him dead. According to Father Duffy: 

“A bullet had pierced his brain. His body was carried in and buried by the side of Ames. God rest his dear and gallant soul.”

Kilmer died from a sniper's bullet to the head near Muercy Farm, beside the Oureq River near the village of Seringes, in France, on July 30, 1918 at the age of 31. For his valor, the French Republic awarded to Kilmer posthumously the Croix de Guerre (Cross of War).

Source:
www.Wikipedia.org